System and method for managing a content catalogue

ABSTRACT

The present invention related to the domain of audio/video content distribution, where a catalogue of available content is made available to end users. An aim of the invention is to ensure that the catalogue has a high quality in that a search within the catalogue will have a high probability of yielding a result. The invention provides a method and a system for creating useful links between elements in the catalogue whenever it is deemed that such links be useful. The links between the elements are created either by adding new content to the catalogue or new metadata which can be associated with the new content and existing content in the catalogue.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

This invention concerns the field of distribution of audio/videocontent, especially where a schedule for future broadcast of suchcontent or a catalogue of availability of such content is made availableto consumers in such a way that the consumer may make a selection fromthe content.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

With the rising amount of digital audio/video content being madeavailable (such as movies, TV series, live events, documentaries),reflected in the increasing number of content sources (TV channels, VODcatalogue, internet stores) and content purchase methods available(pay-per-view, subscription, catch-up TV, pull and push VOD) and furthercompounded by the emergence of new content types (like user generatedcontent), consumers now need very efficient tools to help them findcontent that fits with their preferences and expectations.

To satisfy these consumers' needs, operators offering content throughtheir managed networks not only have to augment and improve the volumeof their content on offer, but they must also follow up with an increasein the volume of metadata related to the content. The metadata must berich enough to represent all consumers' needs in terms of tastes andexpectations and therefore be translatable for use as content searchcriteria. Indeed, in order to help the user to find content, metadatahas to describe the various aspects of content that the consumer islikely to use as search criteria. As a consequence, the management ofcontent metadata by operators is becoming much more complex all alongthe value chain: from acquisition to rendering, through metadatastorage, handling, examination, understanding, and delivery.

The present invention is applicable in the domain of audio/video contentdistribution in the context of broadcast content or video-on-demandcontent (VOD). In both cases the operator prepares a catalogue ofavailable content, i.e. content assets, in advance. In the case ofbroadcast content this will take the form of a schedule for thebroadcast of the content while in the case of VOD this will be a list ofcontent assets in stock or otherwise accessible for viewing. In eithercase the list or the schedule are directly associated with the content.Along with the list of assets or the broadcast schedule, the operatoralso provides content metadata. The metadata is therefore associatedwith the content asset or with the content to be broadcast. The contentmetadata is also gathered in advance (i.e. before putting thecorresponding content asset on-line or otherwise making it accessible orbefore the time advertised in the schedule for the broadcast of thecorresponding content) . . . . Included in the meaning of gatheringcontent metadata is the acquisition of metadata from third partymetadata stores. Third parties may make use of the Internet to makeavailable huge quantities of content metadata. It is possible thereforefor an operator to expand upon content metadata currently available tohim in relation to his assets or schedules by fetching more metadatafrom the Internet for use on top of the currently existing metadata.

Once acquired, metadata is stored in a database and associated in someway to the assets or scheduled events. The metadata is organisedaccording to a number of meaningful fields such as description,contributor, origin among others. Standards such as “TV Anytime” forexample may also be used for organising the metadata. Most often,metadata will be acquired in the format in which it will be delivered.

Once conveniently prepared, metadata can either be delivered with thecontent (i.e. embedded in VOD or broadcast streaming) or kept atback-end i.e. kept by the operator. The metadata may be directlyaccessible to the consumer for browsing, or filtered out in order topresent consumer-personalized content information, or it may be madeavailable for use by applications in charge of helping the consumer tofind given content. Examples of such applications could be search toolsor recommendation tools. In summary, the metadata could be used inbrowsing/exploring content, searching content or recommending content.

United States Patent Application Publication Number 2001/0047290A1discloses a content management system primarily targeted for managingmedia accessible on the internet. The media is interlinked usinghyperlinks and tags, which may therefore be interpreted as metadata. Ameasure of the degree of relevance of the hyperlinks or tags is carriedout and the result is used to create further links between the media inthe database. Furthermore the system inspects, for a particular user, aset of user-preferred tags and relates them to the media in thedatabase. In this way the system can search relevant data for the userwith a high level of success. Such systems are generally known in thestate of the art and are used in technology providing recommendationfunctions.

United States Patent Application Publication Number 2006/0031217A1discloses a method and a system for ontology-based classification ofmedia content within a collection, involving acquiring content,associating classifiers with the content and arranging the classifiersin a hierarchical structure. The classifiers can be used to searchthrough the collection. A confidence value for a classifier isattributed and may be modified by a boosting factor based on acorrespondence between the confidence value and confidence values ofancestor classifiers in the hierarchical classification structure. Bydoing this a more accurate representation of the actual confidence thatmedia content falls within the classification associated with theclassifier is obtained. This method and system is therefore aimed ataccurately classifying an existing collection.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The known recommendation functions provided in the state of the art,generally based on prior knowledge of a user's preferences, are usefulfor ensuring a high success rate during search but these have no effecton the quality of a particular database, where importance is placed onimproving the objective searchability of the database. Systems andmethods based on such functions are generally more concerned with thequality of the content within the database and are generally focused onlimiting the type of data included in the database rather than on theconnections on inter-relations between the elements in the database.

Improvement upon known systems wherein hierarchical classification ofclassifiers associated with content is adjusted to accurately classifythe content is required in order to improve objective searchability ofthe content rather than simply improve the classification of thecontent. The improvement should allow for modification and creation oflinks between the content and should further include the possibility ofautomatically adding content to the database to provide meaningfuladditional links thereby improving searchability. Such links areachievable by creating links between metadata associated with thecontent and without any particular structure being enforced between themetadata or the links.

The present invention provides for a database management system forcontent and associated metadata, where the quality of the database isautomatically maintained/improved by maximizing the connectivity betweenthe content and the metadata with a view to improving the searchabilityof the database. This maximizing is achieved both by adding more linksbetween metadata and by adding further content to the database, thefurther content being found outwith the database using a search based onrelevant metadata.

The invention provides a computer-based method for managing a contentcatalogue comprising a plurality of elements and at least one piece ofmetadata associable, according to predetermined association criteria,with at least one first element from said plurality of elements, saidmetadata being further associable, according to the predeterminedassociation criteria, with at least one further element from saidplurality of elements, said associations creating at least one linkbetween the elements associable, according to the predeterminedassociation criteria, with said metadata, said method comprising:

-   -   searching the content catalogue for at least one poorly-linked        element from within the plurality of elements, said        poorly-linked element having lower than a    -   predetermined threshold number of links to any further element        from the plurality of elements;    -   identifying at least one additional piece of metadata which, if        associated with the poorly-linked element, would add at least        one additional link between elements in the content catalogue;        and    -   if the identified additional piece of metadata is not present        within the catalogue, then acquiring, for the content catalogue,        the identified additional piece of metadata, such acquisition        creating at least the additional link between elements in the        catalogue;    -   redoing the method, from the step of searching the content        catalogue, until the search yields no poorly-linked element.

The invention further provides a system for managing a content cataloguecomprising a plurality of elements and at least one piece of metadataassociable, according to predetermined association criteria, with atleast one first element from said plurality of elements, said metadatabeing further associable, according to the predetermined associationcriteria, with at least one further element from said plurality ofelements, said associations creating at least one link between theelements associable, according to the predetermined associationcriteria, with said metadata, said content catalogue further comprisingat least one poorly-linked element having less than a predeterminedthreshold number of links to any further element from the plurality ofelements, said system comprising:

-   -   a content acquisition module to acquire at least one additional        element;    -   a catalogue quality measurement module, configured at least to        detect the poorly-linked element;        said system characterised in that it further comprises:    -   a metadata acquisition module to acquire at least one additional        piece of metadata, said additional metadata being associable at        least with the poorly-linked element and an element from the        plurality of elements; and    -   a controller module configured to trigger the acquisitions of        the additional metadata and the additional elements as long as        the catalogue quality measurement module detects the        poorly-linked element.

Accordingly, the present invention involves the addition of metadataassociated with the content and moreover the addition of links betweenthe metadata. No particular classification or structure need be given tothe metadata without the need for classifying the metadata in ahierarchical structure. Thanks to the efficient linking of metadata andthereby the content itself, it is easy to include and properly linkfurther content within the database to further improve thesearchability.

The difficulty of finding content and understanding the catalogue isalso an issue for the operators. Actually, the operator's objective isthat any consumer actually finds content of interest to him inside theoperator's database. The issue is not only about searching, it is aboutsuccessful finding. Metadata and tools that enable efficient contentsearch based on search filters, browsers, or recommendation engines,only provide the possibility for finding content. But the success of thesearch actually depends on the quality of the catalogue itself.

Each piece of operator-gathered metadata is primarily related to oneelement from the catalogue, in other words one piece of content i.e. theone for which it was fetched. Hence, the operator ends up with a hugedatabase of content metadata that is accurate in describing each pieceof content separately but not in providing an overview. Without theinvention, methods to relate the content and build a content catalogueoverview are still missing.

The proposed invention is a system and method to help the operatorunderstand his catalogue, measure the quality of the catalogue, and takeremedial action when the quality is deemed unsatisfactory. The proposedquality measure, around which the system is based, includes anassessment of the quantity of links created between content via metadataand the quality in terms of the meaning added by such links and theenhanced interpretation of the content thus made possible. The systemalso provides improvement remedies that include adding links betweencontent through metadata, i.e. in using the metadata as links.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The present invention will be better understood thanks to the detaileddescription which follows and the accompanying drawings, which are givenas non-limiting examples of embodiments of the invention, wherein:

FIG. 1 depicts a content catalogue according to prior art to whichembodiments of the present invention may be applied.

FIG. 2 depicts an environment in the prior art in which embodiments ofthe present invention may be deployed;

FIG. 3 a illustrates a content catalogue to which embodiments of thepresent invention may be applied;

FIG. 3 b illustrates the content catalogue of FIG. 3 a upon which anembodiment of the present invention has been applied; and

FIG. 4 shows a system in which an embodiment of the present inventionmay be deployed.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The present invention pertains to the domain of media content and moreparticular to systems employing content catalogues, especially incatalogues comprising content metadata. The invention proposes a contentcatalogue quality measure and proposes remedies to improve the qualityof the catalogue in the case where the catalogue is deemed to be ofinsufficient quality. The invention further provides a system supportingsaid measurement and remedy actions in the applicable domain.

In this context, the measure of the quality of the content catalogue canbe defined as giving an indication of the probability that a consumer issuccessful in finding a piece of content of interest to him, regardlessof whichever search tool is used. Obviously, this measure depends on thecontent offer and on the content metadata associated with the content.

Indeed, the chances of finding content of interest depend on the contentdiversity: for example, if all documentaries in the catalogue are aboutthe 19^(th) century in Europe, or more realistically, if all theavailable movies are action and war movies, then it is conceivable thatthe probability of not finding content of interest could be very highfor many consumers. Now, consider how this can be solved. First, theoperator has obviously to enrich his offer to improve the diversity ofthe content (e.g. by adding content of the drama and comedy genresrelating to various geographic places and time periods). Indeed, this iswhat is usually done. In parallel, metadata must also be able todescribe this diversity: It must be able to provide the information tothe consumer that there are drama and comedies, and that there arepieces of content relating to a particular geographic area or timeperiod. This is why the definition and measure of content variety andmetadata complexity are linked.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, it is proposed tomeasure metadata diversity in relation to content. Since metadata isassociated with content, it follows that metadata diversity is relatedto content diversity. Metadata diversity could be measured simply byassessing the quantity of different information in the database, or moreprecisely, the quantity of different metadata. For instance, one canmeasure that the metadata carries information about many differentgenres, actors, directors or year releases, or many different timeperiods or fictional characters. However, this would not be sufficientsince such measurement does not take account of the possibility thatmost of the identified metadata is related to a first, well described,subset of the entirety of the pieces of content, or elements, in thecatalogue, while pieces of content from a second subset of the contentare poorly described i.e. are un-related to metadata or related to fewerpieces of metadata. Thus, in order to avoid this distortion the measuremust also take into account the distribution of the metadata among thepieces of content.

The embodiment of the present invention therefore provides for a measurewhich properly takes account of the distribution of the metadata amongthe pieces of content. This also fulfills a further requirement as willbe outlined below, applicable in the case where the operator providescontent search tools to the consumer. If the user enters a particularpiece of information to search for content, it is better for theconsumer to be presented with a choice of pieces of content rather thanone unique piece of content (except in the case of very precise searchcriteria, targeting one specific piece of content, like a particularmovie title for example). Indeed, the consumer likes choices, and theoperator wants to provide several consumption opportunities. Arequirement for presenting a plurality of pieces of content for theconsumer to choose from during a search therefore exists, which isaddressed by at least one embodiment of the present invention.

As mentioned before, there are two other usages of metadata apart fromcontent search tools: namely recommendation and exploration. In bothcases, one can consider the content offer is explored by the consumerstarting from some given piece or pieces of content. This is obvious inthe browsing case, which is close to content zapping, where the consumerdiscovers a piece of content and wants to discover related informationand thereby related contents. This also applies to recommendation. Thisis obvious in the social recommendation case where a piece of content isrecommended on the basis of a selected piece of content (“people wholiked this content also liked . . . ”). This still applies torecommendation technologies based on user profile, since it consists intelling what content the consumer is likely to like given what contenthe liked in the past (“since you liked this content, you'll also like .. . ”).

Thanks to at least one embodiment of the present invention, when theconsumer looks for new pieces of content starting from a given piece ofcontent, by using available pieces of information, he will succeed infinding new content of interest if there are pieces of content in thecatalogue that share those pieces of information or at least some ofthose pieces of information with the starting piece of content. In otherwords, thanks to the characteristic of the present invention whereby theachievement of a good distribution of metadata among the pieces ofcontent is provided, the result is a distribution that establishes awell connected network of pieces of content and therefore a goodcatalogue quality. In this network, the pieces of content are nodes andthe shared pieces of information, or metadata, are links. We will callthis distribution “content-linkage”. A good content-linkage addressesthe distortion effect in the measurement of the content cataloguequality and simultaneously ensures the consumer will be able to exploreor browse content, or be provided with valid recommendation.

By just adding more metadata without checking for links between content,one can get too fine a grain of information, with no more, or too few,content proposed for given search or recommendation criteria. Thisproblem is obvious if a recommendation engine based onconsumer-profiling is used. For the recommendation to work there must becontent on offer to the consumers whatever their profile is. Sincerecommendation works by matching data describing the content with datadescribing the consumer, for each metadata ‘type’ used for the matching,there must be a number of pieces of content with corresponding metadata.The proposed system must then also act as a ‘content recommendationpreparation’ system.

According to embodiments of the invention, the quality of the contentcatalogue is therefore measured through the quality of thecontent-linkage. It is a measure of the amount of metadata and of theamount of metadata shared between contents. This measurement paradigmhas consequences on the integration of the measurement means in thecontent management process and on actions that the system can take toimprove detected unsatisfactory situations. The invention addressesthese aspects by proposing a system where means to measure such qualityof the content-linkage are integrated to the means of content cataloguemanagement.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, a content cataloguequality measurement module is included in the operator's equipment. Bythe nature of the proposed measure, the content must be known first.Thus, the module intervenes after a first step of content catalogueacquisition (VOD assets or schedules of broadcast events) and relatedmetadata acquisition. It automatically measures the content linkage andprovides a report of the measurement that includes an assessment of thequality.

Now consider the case where the quality of content linkage isinsufficient. The system must support the definition of a qualitythreshold that defines at which level the quality is insufficient andallows the automatic detection of this case. The system can thenautomatically trigger remedy actions. For this, the report built by themeasurement module is sent to a second module, the content cataloguequality improvement module, in charge of acting on the content cataloguein order to improve its quality if this is considered necessary.

By definition of the content catalogue quality, it is now obvious theremedies are of two types. First, the content catalogue can be improvedby adding nodes to the network of content, i.e. pieces of content; thisbeing a valid remedy if the metadata related to the new piece of contentprovides links to other pieces of content. Second, the content cataloguecan be improved by directly adding metadata acting as missing links inthe said network.

In all cases, the remedy implies being able to dynamically control themetadata fetching and improvement processes: in the case where contentis added, it must be selected so that accompanying metadata can addlinks that are valuable for the catalogue quality. For this purpose,according to an embodiment of the present invention a content cataloguemetadata controller module is included. This module controls the contentacquisition module and the metadata acquisition module. The contentcatalogue metadata controller receives information relative to thequality of the content catalogue as part of a feedback loop wherein thequality is measured, remedial action is taken depending on the result ofthe measurement. Improvement is made by adding content and/or enrichingmetadata. Closing the loop, the quality is then measured again, remedialaction taken again if necessary and so on until the desired improvementis achieved. In our first remedy case, the controller triggers theacquisition of new content of certain types by describing which kind ofcontent is missing, and thus at least directly which kind of metadata ismissing; it also performs the task of ensuring that metadata related tothe candidate new content actually provide valuable links. Thecontroller therefore instructs the content acquisition module to acquirecontent of a certain type (the type that is deemed to be lacking), whichcan be found either on the basis of the content itself or on the basisof any metadata that is associated with the content. The controller theninspects any metadata associated with the content to be acquired toensure that the acquisition of such content would provide meaningfullinks in relation to the type of content which was deemed to be lacking.In a second case, the controller instructs the metadata acquisitionmodule to fulfill the task of adding new metadata so as to create themissing links. This is referred to as enriching the metadata, wherebyfurther metadata is associated with elements within the existing contentor further metadata is associated with existing metadata. In both thefirst and second case described above, the catalogue quality is againmeasured and the controller decides again, based on information receivedfrom the quality measurement module, whether or not further improvementneeds to be made. This measurement-improvement sequence can be iteratedseveral times.

The metadata controller is thus in charge of enriching metadata; this inturn includes two types of actions: adding metadata to content, and/oradding metadata to metadata. This means adding description to existingmetadata. For instance, a piece of metadata describing Quantum of Solacecan be the Tosca opera; it can link Quantum of Solace to, say, arepresentation of the opera; now, by adding the metadata describing thatTosca is linked to Puccini (as its composer), one may have a linkbetween Tosca and a documentary about Puccini, creating a longer pathbetween Quantum of Solace and this documentary.

FIG. 1 depicts a situation to which embodiments of the present inventionmay be applied. A content catalogue (102) is shown comprising aplurality of elements and at least one piece of metadata (106). Themetadata can be associated with at least one element. In the casedepicted, the metadata is associated with both of the elements shown(104) thereby creating a link (105) between the two elements (104).

FIG. 2 depicts an environment in which embodiments of the presentinvention may be deployed. The content catalogue (102) is depicted withits elements (104) and metadata (106). Outside of the catalogue,additional elements (104 ad) are shown. The additional elements in somecases may be associated with additional metadata (106 ad). Additionalmetadata can also exist without being associated with an element.Elements are generally associable with metadata and vice versa.

FIG. 3 a illustrates the content catalogue comprising a first element(104 fi) associated with a piece of metadata (106 a) and a furtherelement (104 fu) associated with the same piece of metadata (106 a).This mutual association creates a link (105 a) between the first element(104 fi) and the further element (104 fu). The figure also illustratesanother element in the catalogue (104 po) which is not linked to anyother element. We refer to this element as being a poorly linked element(104 po). The poorly-linked element (104 po) may, in some cases, beassociated with its own metadata (106 po), so for the sake of continuingwith the illustration of the element being poorly linked, we say thatany such metadata (106 po) is not associated with any of the otherelements. Since this metadata (106 po) is not associated with any otherelements in the catalogue, and since the poorly-linked element (104 po)is not associated with any of the other metadata in the catalogue, itdoes not create a link. Outside of the catalogue there exists anadditional element (104 ad) which may be associable with the same pieceof metadata as the poorly linked element (in the case that thepoorly-linked element is associated with metadata). By including theadditional element into the catalogue, at least one new link cantherefore be created. If the additional element had its own metadataassociated with it, then it could even arise that further links could becreated if that metadata were associable with any of the other elementsalready in the catalogue. Alternatively, even if the poorly linkedelement were not associated with metadata of its own, merely identifyingany additional piece of metadata which could be associated with any ofthe elements already in the catalogue and with the poorly linked elementwould allow for more links to be created. By acquiring an additionalelement from outwith the catalogue, said additional element beingassociable with, or already associated with, the newly identifiedadditional metadata, the inclusion of such an additional element to thecatalogue would create desirable links. By desirable links, this meanslinks between the poorly linked element and at least one other elementwithin the catalogue.

Another way to create such desirable links, rather than acquiringadditional elements having, or being associable with, the identified(missing) metadata, such metadata (106 ad) itself could be acquired andappropriately added to the catalogue by associating it with the poorlylinked element and another element. Furthermore, such additionalmetadata may be associated with other metadata within the catalogue aswell as with elements in the catalogue. This association of metadatawith metadata is also useful in providing the desirable links. FIG. 3 billustrates the creation of additional links in the content catalogue bythe inclusion of additional elements and/or additional metadata.

The particular example shown in FIGS. 3 a and 3 b covers a case wherethe poorly-linked element has no associated metadata but is associablewith an identified additional piece of metadata existing outwith thecatalogue. An additional element also exists outwith the catalogue whichis also associable with the additional metadata. By acquiring theadditional metadata it can be associated with the poorly-linked element.If the additional metadata is also associable with the further elementin the catalogue for example, then a link is created between thepoorly-linked element and the further element. If the additional elementis acquired for the catalogue, then it can be associated with theadditional metadata, which in turn can be associated with thepoorly-linked element.

It is worth clarifying the use of the word associable in the context ofthe present invention. When a piece of metadata is said to be associablewith an element, once the said element is included into the catalogue,whether or not a specific step of associating the element with themetadata is expressly enumerated does not change the final outcome ofthe association being made. The mere fact that a piece of metadata isassociable with an element implies a possible eventual association. Inthis manner, if an element outwith the catalogue is not associated witha particular piece of metadata but is associable with a piece ofmetadata which exists within the catalogue, then once the element isincluded in the catalogue, the association will be made. Similarly, whena piece of metadata is acquired from outwith the catalogue and isassociable with an element in the catalogue, such association isimplicitly made. The fact of whether or not a piece of metadata isassociable with an element depends on predetermined associationcriteria. For example, the criteria could include an element such as afilm being associable with a year or with an actor or with a director.

FIG. 4 shows a system in which an embodiment of the present inventionmay be deployed. The system is aimed at managing a content catalogue(102) with a view to optimising the searchability of the catalogue. Thecatalogue (102) comprises content, each piece of content otherwise beingreferred to as an element (104 fi, 104 fu, 104 po). Each element may beassociated with one or more pieces of metadata (106 a), the metadatabeing useful for searching the catalogue for one or more particularelements (104 fi, 104 fu, 104 po). According to the embodiment, thesystem further comprises a content acquisition module (108) to acquireadditional elements (content) (104 ad) for the catalogue and a metadataacquisition module (110) to acquire additional metadata for thecatalogue as described above. It is to be understood that the content,whether already existing or further acquired, may already be associatedwith metadata and therefore any inclusion of such elements into thecatalogue implies an inclusion also of such already associated metadata.

The system, according to the embodiment, further comprises a cataloguequality measurement module (112), whose job it is to measure the qualityof the catalogue in terms of its searchability, which depends on themetadata diversity. As discussed in relation to the invention, thesearchability also depends on content linkage. The object is to improvethe quality of the catalogue, or in other words improve thesearchability of the catalogue, thereby raising the probability offinding a target element during a search. Following the measurement ofthe quality, if the probability of finding a target element is below thepredetermined threshold, then improvement is made. This loop iscontinued until the threshold has been achieved. A controller module(114) is in charge of controlling the actions needed to improve thequality. According to the embodiment of the invention, the actions whichmay be taken by the controller include controlling the contentacquisition module to acquire further content based on metadata which isdeemed by the measurement module to have been lacking within thecatalogue. According to the embodiment the controller further controlsthe enrichment of the metadata within the catalogue by controlling themetadata acquisition module (110) to acquire further metadata (106) toassociate with the existing content or to associate with existingmetadata within the catalogue. Among the actions which may be taken bythe controller then is to allow the metadata controller to control themetadata acquisition module to perform such a task. The result is thenan improvement in content linkage, which leads to the desiredimprovement in searchability. The chances of finding something during asearch are therefore greatly increased thanks to the invention.

The system according to embodiments of the present invention may berealised in many different ways as will be readily apparent to one ofordinary skill in the art. For example, in one embodiment, the contentcatalogue may be a database on a server and the system may comprise aprocessor and computer memory. The elements may be VOD assets orschedules of broadcast events for example and the metadata could besomething that describes or may be otherwise related to an event, suchas the name of an actor or director or a word describing the genre ofthe event for example. The processor may be programmed to analyse thequality of the catalogue and to trigger remedial actions should thequality be below an expected threshold. Alternatively some or all of thedevices in the system may be dedicated hardware devices, which maycomprise some combination of hardware, software and/or firmware.

In a preferred embodiment of the invention, the content metadata ismanaged, structured and enriched using a content-topic structure: topicsare categorised by domains, the link between the content and themetadata is defined in a semantic link, automatic data fetching and dataexpansion processes are iterated. This complies well with themeasurement requirements: the quantity of different information for onegiven piece of content is simply the quantity of topics concerned by thecontent that he topic extractor was able to get (i.e. the gathering ofmetadata). A remedy in this case is to run the topic expander more times(i.e. fetching of more metadata). In this case, the applied measurementand improvement requirements are the following: have several topics perpiece of content, and have several pieces of content per topic.

In this case, the measurement method can just be a measure of thequality of a topic. This depends on the number of related domains: if atopic belongs to many domains it is rich information. Conversely, if atopic is related to too many contents through the same semantic link,the link becomes useless. It means the link is irrelevant. The methodcan define a minimum and maximum of semantic links per topic. Inaddition, importance of a topic per-se can be measured using acharacterization of the semantic link and domain importance per-se: forinstance, some domains can be considered of less importance by theoperator e.g. political domains, or highly cultural domains.

In an embodiment, in order to limit the total amount of stored metadata,the methods implemented by the metadata controller may also includeremoving topics of less quality, i.e. topics that do not link manypieces of contents or even no content at all. The method can also keep atopic but remove its links to a given piece of content according to thelink quality. In the preferred embodiment, such methods control thetopic structure by removing or adding semantic links and domains.

The number of times the measurement-improvement sequence is iterated canbe controlled by the operator. Alternatively, the system, consisting inmodules implementing automatic processes can be configured toautomatically stop the iteration once certain criteria are reached. Thestopping criteria may depend on the result of the quality measurement;it can obviously be that the quality threshold is reached. The stoppingcriteria may also depend on an assessment of the possibility to improvethe catalogue and the metadata.

The simplest implementation of the content catalogue quality improvementmodule consists in a human controlled module. In an embodiment, theremedy will be proposed as a list to the human operator who will thendecide which action he will actually trigger. In the preferredembodiment however, some remedies are automatically triggered; in thiscase, the definition of iteration stopping criteria is a necessity. Theydepend on the possibility and the relevancy to add topics relatingcontents, which in turn depends on the topic database size (one has tostop at some time for practical reasons like storage capacity) and thelength of paths created between contents through metadata. Indeed, a toolong path (e.g. Quantum of Solace—Tosca—Puccini—Italy—Toscana—Wine—Amovie with oenologists) may be difficult to apprehend by the finalconsumer. The means to stop the iteration in the preferred embodimentmay consists in the definition of a maximum length of topic chains, orin the definition of a minimum number m of related contents for eachtopic added at iteration n: at iteration n, a new topic is added in thedatabase if, and only if, it is related to a sufficient number of othercontents. Typically the function m(n) will be increasing with n: atiteration n, the distance between a new topic and the enriched contentis longer than at previous iteration, so that the reason to add thetopic must be stronger.

In an embodiment, the measure of the quality of the content catalogue isbased on the theory of networks and actually measure the connectivity ofthe network made of content nodes and metadata links.

In an embodiment, the measure of the quality of the content cataloguealso takes into account links between products. Indeed, the operator'sgoal is that content proposed to the consumer in response to his queriesis relevant but also multiple so to have an opportunity to sell more ofits catalogue. By definition, the proposed measure and improvementmodules and methods, by focusing on content-linkage, are just designedto provide more content on offer for a given query criteria. If theproposed content must be paid to be accessed, as it is the case for VODassets, the operator actually increases the revenues by offering morerelated contents. However, if the content is part of scheduled broadcastchannels, the consumer will not have to pay if he already has access tothe said channel. By products it is meant content providing a potentialfor earning revenue or a plurality of pieces of content so related as toprovide a potential for earning revenue. As the distribution of metadataassociated with content is described as content-linkage, so thedistribution of metadata associated with products can be described interms of “product-linkage”. The measurement method can thus take intoaccount the product-linkage by looking at the product packages to whichlinked contents belong. The product-linkage is improved by addingcontent or metadata, as in content-linkage improvement, that establisheslinks between contents that belong to different product packages. Thismethod will result in a statistical increase of the product sales noticethis is only statistical since it is not based on a consumer model.

In an embodiment, the operator may use this control and knowledge of itscatalogue to build packages of pieces of content to be sold together, orexpose the content to the consumer in a different way in order to drivemore sales. The improvement module may encompass methods to bundleproducts according to clusters in the network of contents.

In an embodiment, the system is based on human intervention at eachmodule level, relying on trained professionals that are aware of thedata meaning from a human point of view.

The invention proposes several measurement methods, which can adapt tothe metadata structure, in various embodiments that can be supported bythe measurement module. Its nature as a module allows the modificationof the measurement methods at any time. The modification can includechanging measurement parameters, like the quality thresholds, or inadding or removing the execution of measurement methods.

The modularity also brings an important advantage. When a new aspect ofcontent catalogue quality is to be addressed, a correspondingmeasurement method can be added to the measurement module without havingto modify the other modules. Indeed, the requirement of the iterationprocesses is just to satisfy the quality criteria, but is independent ofit.

As an example consider the following problem. The metadata controllerimplementing enrichment processes could provide irrelevant data(inflated meaningless data) or incomplete data (poor or missing data).Irrelevancy may appear for instance from errors in the analysis of datasource or mismatching resource identifiers (e.g. bad typed names).Incompleteness may be due for instance to insufficient data sources orto badly defined criteria for limiting data fetching. If one measuresonly the fact that content are well linked, there may be several linksbetween two pieces of contents and just one between two other pieces;the first pieces may be related to many metadata and the other may berelated to a few. They result in a confusing consumer experience: someof the pieces of content may be accompanied with surprisingly accurateinformation, whereas some other may suddenly lack relationships toobvious related topics or lead to following completely out-of-scope,unintended links. This is also a distortion problem, now about the linkquantity rather than in the metadata quantity as in the startingproblem. To overcome this problem, it is sufficient to include in themeasurement methods a measure of the uniformity of the linkages.

A system in which an embodiment of the present invention may be deployedfor example would allow for the management of a content catalogue andits associated metadata, such management including the improvement ofthe quality of the catalogue. By improvement in quality we have seenthat this includes improving the content-linkage within the catalogue,where an aim is to prevent the content linkage from going below apredetermined threshold. The catalogue may be a catalogue of VOD contentand/or event schedules. The system comprises a content acquisitionmodule for acquiring content assets and/or event schedules for thecatalogue along with any metadata already associated therewith; ametadata acquisition module for acquiring metadata which may beassociated with the content/schedules, the metadata being able to bestructured according to some predetermined description semantic; acontent catalogue quality measurement module for assessing and reportingon the catalogue quality by measuring content linkage i.e. theconnectivity of content in the network, said connectivity being createdthrough the contents' shared metadata; a content catalogue qualityimprovement module to trigger the system to employ remedial action toimprove the content catalogue quality; a content catalogue metadatacontroller module to fetch and enrich metadata. In this system thecontent catalogue quality measurement module sends its report to thecatalogue improvement module, which in turn triggers the contentcatalogue metadata controller module to add content and metadata thatimprove the content-linkage. The content catalogue improvement modulemay indeed be part of the controller module. A quality threshold is usedto determine when to begin the improvement process. The contentcatalogue metadata controller may take such actions as adding metadatato content, thereby possibly relating some pieces of content to otherpieces of content, or to relate existing content to other content or toadd metadata to metadata. The content linkage is re-assessed before adecision is taken whether or not to re-iterate the improvement process.

Metrics which can be used in assessing the content-linkage may includecompetency: i.e. rate of answered Competency Questions, per content perdomain (may predefine CQ list or let user define CQ); completeness: rateof domain and category filling, per content (where domain and categoriesare different content data typing in the GUI content ontology; ifsubcategories are defined locally i.e. not for the end-user—they can beused too); interconnectivity: rate of content directly or indirectlylinked, per content; interconnectivity quality: rate of content directlyor indirectly linked, per content and per related content data item;graphical display of interconnectivity; relevancy: rate of redundancy ofsome data items through the various data sources.

Remedial action which may be taken to improve the quality includefetching more predefined sources; automatic finding and fetching newsources; manual insertion, modification, or deletion of data; adding newcontent to the catalogue.

In other embodiments of the present invention any of the algorithmsknown in the state of the art could be used for computing theconnectivity between the metadata and the content, for example any ofthe known algorithms for determining network connectivity. No particularrestrictions are made about the interpretation of the metadata andtherefore no particular structure is given to the metadata. Theconnectivity between the metadata and the content is of importance andnot the interpretation of the metadata itself i.e. not the quality ofthe metadata itself but the quality of the links. In the case where thealgorithm returns value indicating a poorly linked catalogue, a remedyis to add connectivity and not simply to add metadata. To do this it isalso possible to add further content, the further content becomingappropriately linked within the catalogue. Quality improvement does notact on the interpretation or structure of the metadata itself.

An advantage of the invention is to not rely on consumer profiles.Hence, content and product linkages are measured in a generic way,prepared once for all, independently and in advance of the future searchperformed by the consumers. This allows having a data structure validfor all consumers. By preparing data and content linkage throughmetadata, one obtains content and products that have meaningfulrelationships that can be followed by all consumers.

Another advantage of the invention is that it may be applied even to TVsets having no return path. By preparing data and content linkagesthrough metadata, one obtained content and products that have meaningfulrelationships and the metadata sent in-line with the content can justconsist in these links.

1. A computer-based method for managing a content catalogue, said methodcomprising: a) searching a content catalogue for at least onepoorly-linked element from within the plurality of elements, saidcontent catalogue comprising a plurality of elements and at least onepiece of metadata associable, according to predetermined associationcriteria, with at least one first element from said plurality ofelements, said metadata being further associable, according to thepredetermined association criteria, with at least one further elementfrom said plurality of elements, said associations creating at least onelink between the elements associable, according to the predeterminedassociation criteria, with said metadata; said poorly-linked elementhaving lower than a predetermined threshold number of links to anyelement from the plurality of elements; b) identifying at least oneadditional piece of metadata which, if associated with the poorly-linkedelement, would add at least one additional link between thepoorly-linked element and any element from the plurality of elements;and c) if the identified additional piece of metadata is not presentwithin the content catalogue, then acquiring, for the content catalogue,the identified additional piece of metadata, such acquisition creatingat least the additional link between the poorly-linked element and anyelement from the plurality of elements; repeating steps a)-c) until nopoorly-linked element is found in the searching step.
 2. Thecomputer-based method according to claim 1, wherein said identifiedadditional piece of metadata is acquired directly.
 3. The computer-basedmethod according to claim 1, wherein step c) includes acquiring at leastone additional element, said at least one additional element beingassociable, according to the predetermined association criteria, withthe identified additional metadata.
 4. The computer-based methodaccording to claim 1, wherein said at least one additional element isassociable, according to the predetermined association criteria, withthe additional metadata.
 5. The compute-based method according to claim1, wherein the additional link involves the poorly-linked element.
 6. Asystem for managing a content catalogue said system comprising: a memoryfor storing a content catalogue comprising a plurality of elements andat least one piece of metadata associable, according to predeterminedassociation criteria, with at least one first element from saidplurality of elements, said metadata being further associable, accordingto the predetermined association criteria, with at least one furtherelement from said plurality of elements, said associations creating atleast one link between the elements associable, according to thepredetermined association criteria, with said metadata, said contentcatalogue further comprising at least one poorly-linked element havingless than a predetermined threshold number of links to any element fromthe plurality of elements; a content acquisition module configured toacquire at least one additional element; a catalogue quality measurementmodule, configured at least to detect the poorly-linked element; ametadata acquisition module configured to acquire at least oneadditional piece of metadata, said additional metadata being associableat least with the poorly-linked element and an element from theplurality of elements; and a controller module configured to trigger theacquisitions of the additional metadata and the additional elements aslong as the catalogue quality measurement module detects thepoorly-linked element.
 7. The system of claim 6, wherein the at leastone additional piece of metadata is acquired directly.
 8. The system ofclaim 6, wherein the additional link includes the poorly-linked element.9. The computer-based method according to claim 2, further comprisingacquiring at least one additional element, said at least one additionalelement being associable, according to the predetermined associationcriteria, with the additional metadata.
 10. The computer-based methodaccording to claim 2, wherein the additional link involves thepoorly-linked element.
 11. The computer-based method according to claim3, wherein the additional link involves the poorly-linked element. 12.The computer-based method according to claim 4, wherein the additionallink involves the poorly-linked element.
 13. The computer-based methodaccording to claim 9, wherein the additional link involves thepoorly-linked element.